Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Day (or two) Late Blog & Dice K Mania

It’s snowing right now…April 4 and it’s snowing like a bastard add in the facts that the Red Sox got knocked around by the Royals Monday, I didn’t get to watch the game, they had yesterday off and I’m most likely going to miss tonight’s game and this so called “best week in sports” isn’t really going so well.

Alright enough bitching and moaning from me on to more important things. I was going to do a “ramblings” column but there are two main things I wanted to touch on this week so let’s just stick to that. One – the NCAA Championship game…I know, I know I’m late but that’s how I roll sometimes. Two – Dice-K’s first start.

NCAA Championship – a day (or two) late – When I first started this blog I wrote about how I didn’t have a college team to follow, no dog in the fight so to speak, but the NCAA tournament is a great time for someone like me, I can easily jump on any bandwagon I choose and after abandoning my brackets, which I did successfully, I was ready to go. Even though this year lacked any notable Cinderella stories the fact that two number one seeds and two number two seeds made the final four provided us with some great games. I would have liked to see Texas make it a little further (by further I mean the title game) but I digress.

Monday night’s championship game was awesome. On the one hand you had Florida, who’s not only won back-to-back basketball titles but the Gators are the BCS National Champions and the college hoops champs, that’s unheard of now-a-days. Ohio State’s had a bad run of luck, if you can really call it bad luck but losing to Florida in two title games in two months. Three potential top ten draft picks in Noah, Horford and Brewer on the Gators then the consensus number one pick, especially after last night, in Oden and the best point guard in the country in Mike Connelly Jr., you just don’t see that.

I was rooting for Florida since my buddy’s mom is a Florida grad but I really wanted to see Oden dominate, since I hadn’t watched him play much I wanted to see why he’s the number one and why he is decidedly better then Kevin Durant, who I really like and have paid more attention to this year. Well I got what I wanted. Even though the Buckeyes lost Oden was unreal. His two handed swallowing of Corey Brewer, who has grown on me and was the second best guy on the floor, and the way he dominated in the middle against three legit Florida guys, not to mention the four absolute ‘jungle dunks’ that brought us out of our seats. If the Celtics get the number one pick I hope they take Oden, as much as I like Durant, Greg Oden is going to be unreal with an offense that runs through him.

Speaking of Oden, I don’t think Ohio State ran it’s offense through Oden enough especially when they were struggling from three-point range, imagine if they could have hit a couple. I guess I don’t really have a whole lot of insight into the game but I felt like I had to talk about it.

The other thing that made Monday so great is that it was the one year anniversary of the Dave “wait, wait, wait, I think my wiener fell out” Bridgewater night, classic.

Ok hopefully this will salvage this post but Dice K makes his first start tomorrow at 2:10 in Kansas City, let’s just say I’m excited, ok excited isn’t really the right word I think this event needs more of a phrase, like “I’m fucking pumped” or however you say that in Japanese.

When you’re favorite team pays $51 million just to talk to a guy there are a couple of things that run through you’re head. That he must be incredible, that he’s going to be a bust and that you pray to God he is incredible. From what I’ve seen and read, he is going to be good. He’s going to be very good but held to insane standards. I really hope that he pitches well tomorrow, I’m thinking six innings, scatters a couple hits maybe gives up a run or two but the Sox win. Unfortunately the way people can be around here, if he pitches unreal people are going to go nuts and say he’s the next Pedro. On the other hand if he pitches poorly (I really don’t want that to happen) Red Sox fans might be borderline suicidal, especially if Beckett doesn’t pitch well tonight.

Way too many negative thoughts in that paragraph, we are moving on. Dice k’s debut has to be the most anticipated Red Sox debut in a long time, even though he’s technically a rookie Dice k is the most high profile free agent the Sox have signed since, Curt Schilling/Manny Ramirez. It’s been Dice k mania since the Sox signed him and even though he pitched in spring training tomorrow afternoon it counts, I really haven’t been this excited for a baseball game since the 2004 playoffs (2005 I was still in the ’04 haze).

I’ve been kicking around the idea of a live blog for the game, I’m sure I won’t be the only one but since I’m leaving work early and parking in front of the TV for the game I figure why not. I haven’t done a running diary since the Pats Super Bowl win over the Eagles but it’s pretty entertaining so why not make my live blog debut during Dice K’s MLB debut.Stay tuned.

The Red Seat

Section 42, Row 37, Seat 21 is the spot of the infamous red seat in the right field bleachers at Fenway Park. The red seat marks the longest home run ever hit inside Fenway, a 502 foot monster shot from Ted Williams on June 9, 1946.